The owner of this home at 38 Cross St. in Jackson hopes to build a 400- student all-girls Orthodox Jewish high school on the property. / Bob Bielk/Staff photographer

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A rendering of an all-girls Orthodox Jewish high school proposed in Jackson is shown at a Jackson zoning board meeting Oct. 2. / Robert Ward / Staff Photographer

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JACKSON — Peeved by a proposal to build an all-girls Orthodox Jewish high school, a group of township residents hired a lawyer to fight the plan before the municipal Zoning Board.

The Jackson Citizens Defense Fund launched a week ago to fight a proposal to build the two-story Oros Bais Yaakov High School on Cross Street. Residents in the area worry the 400-student school would bring increased traffic to the residential neighborhood and risk polluting nearby wells. The neighborhood of homes on one-acre lots is dependent on their own well and septic systems. If approved, the school would also use a well and septic system.

Rabbi Ephraim Birnbaum — who is proposing the school on the 7.5-acre lot — is seeking a variance before Jackson’s Zoning Board to build, because a school is not a permitted use in the residential neighborhood. The application also seeks permission to provide only half the required number of parking spaces, as well as a higher and larger sign than is normally permitted.

During the Oct. 2 hearing, attorney Raymond Shea, who represents Birnbaum, said all schools — private or public — serve a beneficial function. Shea has not responded to repeated requests for comment. Birnbaum declined to speak on the matter in early October, and did not respond to later phone calls seeking comment.

Orsini, who is spearheading the defense fund and whose backyard abuts the property being considered for the school, said about $3,500 was raised within its first few days of operation through online donations and meetings with neighbors.

The fund hired Red Bank attorney Ron Gasiorowski to represent the neighbors’ concerns before the zoning board, which began to hear testimony on the school proposal Oct. 2 before hundreds of Jackson residents who attended in protest of the project. Without sufficient time to hear all public objections, the hearing was continued to the board’s Nov. 20 meeting.

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Gasiorowski said his clients “want to preserve the residential character of their neighborhood.”

A review of the plans show that engineers expect 1,900 gallons per day of sewage to flow through the school’s septic system after the first phase of construction, which would accommodate 190 students. The Ocean County Health Department must give approval for the septic plan in the first phase.

After the second phase of construction, which adds an additional 210 students, 4,000 gallons per day of sewage are expected to flow through the septic system.

Jackson’s Municipal Utilities Authority has no immediate plans to establish its water connections to the neighborhood, which consists mostly of single-family homes on one-acre lots.

Residents fear the septic flow and possible science experiments washed down the school’s drains pose a risk to their own wells.

The school, if approved, would be constructed on a parcel of land that gradually slopes east to west, and is a few feet higher than homes on Galassi Court, according to plans submitted to the Zoning Board.

Septic experts and engineers contacted by the Asbury Park Press would not comment on specifics of the school proposal, but any septic system that handles more than 2,000 gallons of wastewater per day falls under the jurisdiction of the state Department of Environmental Protection. The school’s second phase of construction requires DEP approval.

The DEP’s Division of Water Quality sets septic standards under the Pollutant Discharge Elimination System rules.

The DEP does not require minimum lot sizes for buildings on septic systems; that is left to municipalities to determine, DEP spokesman Bob Considine said.

“Sanitary discharges are monitored for total nitrogen (nitrate and ammonia), fecal coliform, pH, and once a year for volatile organics,” Considine said. “Obviously if septic systems aren’t properly controlled, people can sick. The regulations are in place for the sake of the environment and for people’s health and safety.”

Gasiorowski, the attorney hired by the Jackson Citizens Defense Fund, said schools have other impacts on neighborhoods, including increased traffic and brighter lighting.

“If the municipality felt that this property should be zoned for schools, … they could have zoned it in that fashion,” Gasiorowski said.